The Lost Child (Detective Lottie Parker #3)(90)

I pull up my socks from where they have slipped down in my shoes and pick at the elastic until it snaps and the sock folds once again around my ankle. I do the same to the other one. They have cut my hair tight to my head and combed it straight. I quickly run my fingers through it and shake my head vigorously until I’m sure it is all standing on end. Now I feel contented. I’m not going to play their game. I’m planning my own.

When the woman walks in, I feel my breath stick in my throat and the words I wanted to yell smother down into my chest. Somewhere in the dark recesses of my brain I remember her. My mother? No, she is not my mother. She’s the one who brought us here that day. Signed the papers and walked away. Along with a man in uniform.

It’s all coming back in such a rush, my head hurts. He’s not here today but he was with her that day. Wasn’t he upset? I close my eyes and drag the memory to my conscious state. I was so young. He was yelling something about how the foster mother should have taken both. Now I remember. The presence of the woman before me has sparked those memories of when she was here with that man, and I feel another sensation taking root in my soul. The same one that caused me to count to six hundred and sixty-six as I stuffed the miserable little seeds down Johnny-Joe’s throat.

‘You’re sixteen.’ Her voice is high and cold. ‘You probably thought I’d forgotten about you. Well, I’ve come to let you know that you’re staying here until you’re twenty-one. I think that is the right age to let you out into the world again. If I don’t die in the meantime.’

She laughs in a shrill, high-pitched way that drills a hole into my head. And I want to drill a hole in hers.

‘Behave yourself in here and I’ll be back to sign you out. A few more years. That’s all.’

She hasn’t sat down. Standing. Holding a black leather handbag tight under her arm. The sun outside comes from behind a cloud and shines in through the stained glass at the top of the window, painting her in a myriad of colours.

She opens her bag, takes out a book. Holds it out to me. Should I take it or let her hold it until her arm weakens and she has to put it back in her bag?

I step towards her. She steps backwards.

I smile. I know I have a smile that can strike fear into others. Her mouth droops and I think she’s going to scream. She doesn’t. Her eyes seem blinded by the light coming from the window. I could jump on her and bite out her tongue and spit it against the sickly yellow walls. And no one would hear until it was too late.

I want to do that. I really do.

But I also want to get out of here.

And if that means waiting another five years for her to come back, then I will keep on smiling at her until she leaves.

I take the book from her hand, my fingers lightly brushing against her skin.

She shivers, as if I’ve stuck an icicle through her heart.

She turns to open the door, her mission complete.

‘Where is my twin?’ The only words I have spoken aloud to anyone in years. The sound of my voice frightens even me.

‘You don’t need to know.’

She opens the door and escapes to her world, condemning me to another five years in mine.

I am patient.

I can wait.





Day Six





Eighty





‘No let-up in the weather, then,’ Boyd said as Lottie bumped into him on the station steps.

She keyed in the code on the interior door and together they made their way up the stairs to the office.

‘The sandbags holding back the river are at breaking point,’ she said, hanging up her jacket. No sign of McMahon in her office.

‘I thought it burst its banks already?’

‘That was in the centre of town; up near my house, the water is above the banks and the council put down sandbags. No idea how long they’ll last.’

‘The weather!’ McMahon strode into the office shaking his coat, splashing drips over desks and paperwork. ‘I’m sick of listening to people moaning.’

‘Don’t listen then. Why don’t you—’

‘Lottie!’ Boyd said, his hazel eyes firing a warning at her across the office.

‘I was just going to say why don’t you get a warm mug of coffee.’ She attempted an eye roll, but when Boyd laughed, she was sure her efforts had resulted in something completely different.

‘Good idea,’ McMahon said. ‘Two sugars. I like it sweet.’

‘I wasn’t suggesting—’

‘I’ll get it,’ Boyd interjected.

Lottie followed him to the makeshift canteen.

‘I can’t believe we still have no sightings of either O’Dowd or Arthur Russell,’ Boyd said.

‘And I can’t believe Corrigan hasn’t called me in after McMahon complained yesterday,’ Lottie said.

‘I think our super is in your corner.’

‘I am. For now.’ Corrigan stuck his head into the confined space. ‘But if you don’t solve this and get rid of that shithead back to Dublin soon, I think I’ll throw in the feckin’ towel myself.’

Lottie looked at Boyd and they burst out laughing. She felt tension easing out of her shoulders as Corrigan stomped off down the corridor muttering to himself about getting a press release ready.